Date:         Fri, 30 Jun 2000 12:03:57 +1000
Reply-To:     Patrick McElduff <patrickm@MAIL.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Patrick McElduff <patrickm@MAIL.NEWCASTLE.EDU.AU>
Subject:      Re: question on variance
Comments: To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.VT.EDU
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I thank those people who have responded to the question on the variance of x^.

I don't believe that it is useful to use a taylor series expansion.  A
taylor series is intended to approximate a complex function with a polynomial.

The taylor series expansion of x^2  is only useful if you go to the second
order term; in which case  the taylor series expansion of x^2 is x^2 - and
so it is for any other polynomial  (terms above the second order term equal
zero because higher order derivatives equal zero).

However I still don't know the answer to the problem but I am more than
happy to assume that x is a normally distributed random variable.

Any other help will be appreciated.

Regards Patrick